The Mojave’s late bloomers

THE upper-elevation snows of late winter have led to a delayed blooming season in the Mojave National Preserve.

In addition, lightning strikes fed by winds last June burned 70,000-plus acres -- one of the largest fires ever in the Mojave Desert region, about 170 miles northeast of Los Angeles In a backdrop that looks like a set for a black-and-white movie, there are still pockets of green.

“Throughout the desert, this is one of the few places with spectacular blooms,” said James Woolsey, chief of interpretation at Mojave National Preserve. “And if it wasn’t for the fire and the late precipitation, this wouldn’t be happening. It’s blooming later than last year, and it’s been a surprise to visitors to see the desert in bloom after a dry winter.”

Burned woody plants, including carmine desert paintbrush, are resprouting from the root crown. Donald Davidson, artist and flora-phile, is busy in the Mid-Hills area, which is awash in annuals and perennials. “I’m basking in the stark beauty of riotous blooms rolling across the hillsides beneath the charred Joshua trees and barrel cactus,” he said.

His botanical watercolors are posted on the Traveling Artist Wildflower page of the National Park Service website, www.nps.gov/plants/cw/watercolor/index.htm. Sixteen of his watercolors are also on display at the visitors center in Death Valley, the well-known national park north of the Mojave preserve.

Some of the most prevalent and attractive flowers in the Mid-Hills section and among the seven mountain ranges of the preserve include lavender desert verbena, orange globe mallow, yellow paper daisy, orange Mariposa lily, pink penstemon, magenta giant four o’clock and the desert marigold.

Just beginning to bud are the red, yellow and pink blossoms of many cactuses such as hedgehogs, pancake-pears, claret cups, beavertails, grizzlies and Mojave mounds. The 6-foot stalks of the agave utahensis, the northernmost of that species, will have clustered 3-foot yellow blooms through June.

Three of North America’s four deserts -- the Mojave, Great Basin and Sonoran -- converge in the preserve, where elevations go from 880 to 7,492 feet. The result is an amazing diversity of flora numbering more than 700 species.

Half the land is designated wilderness, but much of it is accessible by 2,000 miles of four-wheel-drive roads. If you plan to explore them, it’s best to pick up a topographical map. They’re available at the Nipton Trading Post in the old mining town of Nipton on the northeast edge of the preserve or at the Kelso Depot Visitor’s Center in the middle of the preserve.

The center, a cool peachy-pink apparition, is a good first stop. The restored Spanish Mission Revival building, a former rail station, offers 10 rooms of interactive displays and oral history that capture the all-but-vanished ranching, mining and railroading life; the Native American legacy; and an overview of the plant life that makes this area so unusual. You can sit on an old wrangler’s saddle or push a big black button to hear the boom that the third-largest sand dunes in the U.S. can make under the right conditions.

The center is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily; for information, call (760) 733-4456 or go to www.nps.gov/moja.